1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming device capable of transmitting and receiving print data to and from another image forming device, a control method therefor, and a storage medium storing a program for executing the control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, most of image forming devices (also called image forming apparatuses) are configured to immediately print out print data that is received from an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer. Thus, if, for example, a print product is left unpicked, there is a fear that information is leaked to a third party.
To obviate this, there has been proposed an image forming apparatus that performs retention printing where received print data is not printed immediately, but printed in response to a print instruction request input by a user (see, for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-251279).
There has also been known a retention printing system that has a server in which are registered pieces of bibliographic information each identify a corresponding one of print data respectively received by image forming apparatuses (see, for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2010-211627). With this printing system, if an image forming apparatus that has received print data cannot print the print data (also referred to as the to-be-printed data) by itself, another image forming apparatus (also referred to as the external image forming apparatus) identifies and prints the to-be-printed data corresponding to a print instruction request input by a user, while referring to bibliographic information registered in the server.
However, this retention printing system requires the server for registering pieces of bibliographic information, and hence requires costs for introduction, maintenance, and management of the server.
An image forming apparatus has also been known that can realize retention printing without using a server. In this printing system, if print data cannot be printed by an image forming apparatus that has received the print data, the image forming apparatus transmits bibliographic information that identifies the to-be-printed data to external image forming apparatuses. The to-be-printed data is printed by an external image forming apparatus stored with the to-be-printed data identified by the bibliographic information, among the external image forming apparatuses to which the bibliographic information is transmitted.
With the above-described printing system, however, the image forming apparatus that cannot print the to-be-printed data by itself is required to transmit the bibliographic information to all the external image forming apparatuses to make inquiries about the presence or absence of the to-be-printed data. This results in unnecessary connections to external image forming apparatuses in which the to-be-printed data is not stored. In addition, if some of the unnecessarily connected external image forming apparatuses are in a power-saving mode, such external image forming apparatuses are returned from the power-saving mode to receive the bibliographic information, resulting in wasteful power consumption.